Heat and rainfall extremes have intensified over the past few decades and this trend is projected to continue with future global warming1,2,3. A long persistence of extreme events often leads to societal impacts with warm-and-dry conditions severely affecting agriculture and consecutive days of heavy rainfall leading to flooding. Here we report systematic increases in the persistence of boreal summer weather in a multi-model analysis of a world 2 °C above pre-industrial compared to present-day climate. Averaged over the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude land area, the probability of warm periods lasting longer than two weeks is projected to increase by 4% (2–6% full uncertainty range) after removing seasonal-mean warming. Compound dry–warm persistence increases at a similar magnitude on average but regionally up to 20% (11–42%) in eastern North America. The probability of at least seven consecutive days of strong precipitation increases by 26% (15–37%) for the mid-latitudes. We present evidence that weakening storm track activity contributes to the projected increase in warm and dry persistence. These changes in persistence are largely avoided when warming is limited to 1.5 °C. In conjunction with the projected intensification of heat and rainfall extremes, an increase in persistence can substantially worsen the effects of future weather extremes.

“Give us God in whatever form She, He, It, or They consents to assume, so long as that transcendent something supplies us with an answer we can curl up around close enough to breathe ourselves to peace, or anyway to sleep. Lord give us this night our daily certainty.”

“The first step toward creating some way out of our dilemma may involve allowing our sense of certainty itself to unravel.”

Our modern technology has given us a strong sense of certainty by its “swap the board” or “replace the unit” fix. Unfortunately, main stream science uses a mechanistic model as a basis for “fixing” climate change. Even the measurement devices are designed for machines instead of a living Earth; a living being. Homo Sapiens have never encountered the present level of CO2 and some other green-house gasses. CO2 is now building up in the troposphere at an increasing level and the rate of increase is increasing. Further the rate of increase is variable and unpredictable.

There is no certainty and no meaningful computer models to assist in predictability.

Of course, this is green fodder for those paid to spread fear and doubt thus discrediting 97% of climate scientists who know that humans are accountable for this runaway increase in CO2, warming of the oceans and melting of polar icecaps to name a few climate variables. We accept uncertainty when our physician prescribes a remedy and then tells us that if it doesn’t work we are to return for an alternative. However, there is no loss of profits in that situation whereas keeping fossil fuel in the ground might throw a few people off the billionaire list! Sky 31 March, 2019

The Flight from Nature

“Nobody is going to come and get rid of anthropogenic climate change, either—not without putting a full stop at the end of the entire galaxy of extravagant energy-wasting habits that are treated as normal by modern industrial society. That this obvious conclusion is far from obvious to the people who do most of the talking about climate change—that it is in fact unthinkable to them—is, I think, a direct result of the way that modern lifestyles distance people from nature, and especially members of the well-to-do classes that play so central a role in climate change activism. The fact remains that a conclusion can be unthinkable and still be quite true.”

“More seriously, every time I talk about the uncertainties inherent in climate projections, I feel attacked from all sides of the climate mitigation debate. I admit that in the current landscape, any expression of uncertainty is immediately weaponized by those who want to delay climate action.”

Stop and think a minute. Many of our professionals work in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Take, for instance, our medical profession. Despite their utmost efforts to “get it right” all the time, the human body doesn’t react to medicine in the same way every day. Why? We are a complex, living organism, not a machine. Earth is a complex, living organism also. As a living organism, our usual measuring instruments miss the mark because they were designed to deal with a machine-like inanimate “things.” Thus there has to be some uncertainty with climate change predictions. Consider weather. The weather forecasts are full of uncertainty and often off centre. So, we live with that. Climate is just weather over a long period of time.

Consider our dedicated and compassionate medical workers do their best with the tools they have available yet they work daily with uncertainty and we accept that.

Climate scientists are often in the best position to analyse and make responsible moral judgements re: climate change. Who knows better? When it comes to risk, I’d sooner believe a few climate change researchers than a spokesperson for an industry that takes profits from CO2 emitting activities.

“The overall rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide during the last deglaciation was thought to have been triggered by the release of CO2 from the deep ocean – especially the Southern Ocean. However, the researchers say that no obvious ocean mechanism is known that would trigger rises of 10-15 ppm over a time span as short as one to two centuries.”

I read daily updates on climate change science and suspected results of the certain rapid increase in CO2 and methane levels in both the atmosphere and oceans. In the oceans it increases acidification to the detriment of crustaceans and other hard shelled animals. In addition I read about climate change deniers and detractors; many of which are paid to create cherry picking and inaccuracies that result in doubt in public opinion.

Science does not and never has supplied “truth.” The primary cause of the subject of uncertainty is a misunderstanding of the nature of Earth. Earth is a living being and not a machine. Earth events are often unpredictable and constantly break the “laws of Nature” that we persist in holding onto. Earth rhythms and cycles never exactly repeat. Variation resides in the very core of what it is to be planet Earth.

Take our medical Doctor visits. We learn to accept the “uncertainty” of our health and our illness treatments. We think nothing of following medical advice. For instance, the exact cause of an illness often cannot be determined accurately. We are sometimes told to take this medicine and come back in awhile to see if it worked. If not then other medicine is prescribed.

Governments and other power structures have habituated the “do nothing until we have absolute proof,” and “not enough data has been collected” excuses. They fiddle while Rome burns. It is time to stop searching for who started the fire and concentrate on putting out the fire.

We don’t need to know the exact extent of anthropogenic causes to become aware that humans, within the present cultural and global economic system, contribute a significant and irrefutable amount of greenhouse gases. These gasses are undeniably present and increasing. Weather in most regions of Earth is becoming more severe,[see: http://mashable.com/2014/11/02/super-typhoon-nuri-strongest-storm-2014/#:eyJzIjoiZiIsImkiOiJfeGhoOTN4dDhsbmZvcmc1ayJ9] sea levels are rising, glaciers and polar icepacks are melting faster than predicted, and oceans are warming while life-forms that make up our food chain are dying. Desertification is increasing whilst global air currents carry little or no moisture from the rainforests to sustain vegetation.

Surely it is obvious to all rational beings that we can wait no longer for certainty, for “scientific proof.”

“In 2012 the world crossed an ominous threshold. A reading of 400 parts per million [ppm] of atmospheric carbon dioxide was recorded by monitoring stations across the arctic. That is at least 50ppm higher than the maximum concentration during the last 12,000 years, a period that allowed us to develop agriculture and civilization.” At the Edge of the Roof: The Evolutionary Crisis of the Human Spirit

From Spiritual Ecology Edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Quote from loc 574 on Kindle Edition

“On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958.”

I am saddened by what appears to be either a misprint [“during the last 12,000 years…”] or a misunderstanding of how CO2 and temperature varies profoundly [at least over the last million years] in an approximately 100k year cycle of around 90% massive glaciation and low average atmospheric temperature and a 10% is the interglacial period of approximately 12,000 years. Up until the present interglacial period, human population has had from very little to no effect on these cycles. These cycles have been authenticated by several research projects of which the Russian Vostok station in East Antarctica is arguably the most well known.

So my point here is that all recorded cycles reveal high CO2 content during the peak of the interglacial warm part of the cycle. CO2ppm will always be the highest during the peak of the interglacial part of the cycle.

What then is the point?

What I suggest IS the point, however, is that the graphs of various ice core drillings reveal that CO2 has never been this high in at least a 800,000 years. Average temperature have been this high or higher before but never CO2ppm.

I don’t need to reiterate just why CO2 is a problem. Both common sense and overwhelming scientific research and scientist’s consensus point to anthropogenic factors involved here. Just what are they? The most well known factor is, of course, the human industrial infrastructure that burns such huge quantities of fossil fuels at a rate exceeding what Gaia can balance out and/or absorb. Thus the greenhouse effect is driving average global temperature up. I won’t repeat the well known details of what has been driving temperatures in the past. See: http://www.earthenspirituality.com/glogal-warming/

The Gaia Theory

There is another factor which is seldom cited. It seems to only come to mind when the obvious question is asked. I admit, the question appears to only be obvious to a few, myself included.

What has driven the temperature down sharply at the end of previous interglacial warming periods?

So much talk and media exposure is spent on what is causing the warming. However, we may be overdue for the temperature drop. The details of our present Holocene period reveal that the temperature did level off around two thousand years or so and began to drop. Painfully obvious is the fact that it is now rising.

Now let me be clear. As I mentioned above, all the cycles are different and our present one cannot be predicted to any extensive degree of accuracy. Not only do we not have historical details to compare with, but after all we are dealing with a living being and living organisms do not behave like a machine in preciseness. Why we expect this and how well funded climate change deniers capitalise on lack of preciseness is the subject for another paper at some other time.

Let me answer the question above. We have a lot of scientific evidence to support the analysis of what starts the warming for the rapid temperature increase and ensuing start of an interglacial period. Not much has been documented about how the tail end, the cooling is forced. Melankovitch cycles are a major part of it, but I suggest that they need augmentation. The juxtaposition of the planet’s angle to the sun’s radiation and the sun’s distance do decrease, but these factors don’t appear to be able in themselves decrease the CO2 content and thus decrease the greenhouse effect. So what does?

Yes, billions of trees, bushes and tall grass that slowly follow the melting glaciers northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern hemisphere. This vegetation not only sucks up tons of CO2 but from transpiration helps form significant cloud cover whose overall effect is to increase the deflection of the sun’s radiation more than their addition to the greenhouse effect. Could we look back at the endings of previous interglacial periods, we would see these billions of trees and miles of long grass and savannah constantly pulling CO2 from the atmosphere; reducing the greenhouse effect adding to the decreased insolation and thereby causing a sudden tipping point for the temperature decline. The complete halt in forest harvesting and massive planting is simply the least expensive and most overall beneficial action that could be taken to mitigate the effects of the greenhouse effect. There are now sacred cows in India; there could be sacred trees worldwide.

“Pristine Amazon forests pull in more carbon dioxide than they put back into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The findings confirm that natural Amazon forests help reduce global warming by lowering the planet’s greenhouse gas levels, the researchers said.”

Let’s cease spending money on further research on a subject that has been fully covered and instead spend the money paying people to NOT cut the trees and plant more. In earlier interglacial cycles, it was the millions of trees and extensive savanna that gradually lowered CO2 enough to boost the downward cycle into the much longer glacial part of the cycle.

I hear many people asking themselves, “Why would we want to support long glacial periods?” Because that’s how Earth, a living being, has decided to counter the effects of the sun’s expanding heat. Let’s work with the planet, not just rape and pillage as if the Earth came into being for our benefit.